[148] George Rawlinson, book v., essay ii.
In the administration of the government, however, are to be noted a few important changes. The complications which had arisen as a result of the individual ownership of property, the change in the reckoning of descent from the female to the male line which followed, and the growth of the aristocratic element, had produced a corresponding change in the control and management of the government. Solicitude for the common weal, although still felt by the great mass of the people, had among the rulers given place to extreme egoism, and that association and combination of interests, which since the dawn of organized society had characterized the gens, was rapidly giving way before the love of dominion, the thirst for power, and the greed of gain—characters which in process of time came to represent the mainspring of human action.
With the changes which took place in the conditions of the people, it is seen that the administrative functions became still further differentiated. Co-ordinate with the Greek _basileus_ or war-chief are to be observed not only a council of chiefs who were the heads of the gentes, but also an assembly of the people, these three governmental functions corresponding in a general way to our President, Senate, and House of Representatives.
The Ecclesia or general assembly at Sparta was originally composed of all the free males who dwelt within the city. Although this body originated no measures, it was invested with authority to adopt or reject any proposed legislation or plan of action devised by the chiefs. “All changes in the constitution or laws, and all matters of great public import, as questions of peace or war, of alliances, and the like, had to be brought before it for decision.”[150] Thus may be observed the precautions which during the latter stages of barbarism had been taken to guard the rights of the people, and to insure them against individual and class usurpation.
[150] George Rawlinson, book v., essay i.
Curtius assures us that the Dorian people
did not feel as if they were placed in a foreign state, but they were the citizens of their own—not merely the objects of legislation, but also participants in it, for they only obeyed such statutes as they themselves had agreed to.[151]